


Shadow of Mine

by Atisenia



Series: Chiaroscuros [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fairy Tale Retellings, Gen, M/M, Magical Realism, Shadow - Freeform, Tumblr: letswritesherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-18
Updated: 2013-07-18
Packaged: 2017-12-20 15:32:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/888875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atisenia/pseuds/Atisenia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The music hits John with everything he remembers: it’s not exactly happy but not quite sad either. Just achingly familiar.<br/>He lost a friend to that melody.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadow of Mine

**Author's Note:**

> My second entry for the Let's Write Sherlock's [Challenge 2](http://letswritesherlock.tumblr.com/post/53511388655/challenge-1-is-still-open-until-june-30-but-were). It's based on Andersen's [The Shadow](http://www.online-literature.com/hans_christian_andersen/980/).
> 
> I wanted this story to follow until the end of the fairy tale (more or less) but then I had computer problems and a minor crisis. I fully intend to write the second part but I'm not sure if I'll be able to do it before the deadline, so I found a reasonable (I hope) ending point and I'm posting it now. I'll probably make it into a series instead of adding a second chapter when I do write the rest (and I hope I will).
> 
> Also, English is not my first language, so I'm sorry for any mistakes you find. You can always let me know so I can fix them.

The music starts so softly that John nearly misses it. He’s staring at his laptop screen and trying to come up with something to put on his blog that would please his therapist.

He _doesn’t_ think about the gun.

A couple of louder notes make John freeze. He recognizes the tune now but he doesn’t quite believe his own ears. He’s been mistaken before and it nearly broke him.

But not this time. John knows it’s the same melody when the tune changes abruptly, embracing him in a vivid but short crescendo.

He looks around and frowns at the darkness that surrounds him. He must have spent hours sitting at that desk, staring at the screen. He stands up slowly, afraid that a false step will make the music stop.

He doesn’t dare to switch on the light. He very nearly doesn’t open the window. It’s old and rusty and its creaking noises would disturb the melody. But John needs to be closer to that sound, needs to feel it shatter his bones and put him back together better, stronger.

He opens the window, leans on the windowsill and shivers, and only a fraction of that shiver is due to the freezing January air. The music hits John with everything he remembers: it’s not exactly happy but not quite sad either. Just achingly familiar.

He lost a friend to that melody.

There’s a tall figure on the corner of the street. John can’t make out the features of the man’s face and the contours of his silhouette merge with the shadow cast by the building. He holds a violin and plays it with bittersweet accuracy that hypnotizes John and makes him forget about his limp and move.

He’s outside before he can really think about it, before he can decide what _exactly_ is he trying to achieve. He steps closer to the figure in shadows, letting the music determine his every move. He doesn’t want the melody to stop before it’s finished because he may never hear it again.

The stranger notices him but doesn’t stop playing. John thinks he sees a flicker of surprise on the man’s face but he can’t be sure when he’s still half hidden in the shadows.

There’s another crescendo John doesn’t recognize and he’s about to protest when the music stops altogether. The man holds the bow and the violin in place for a while longer but no sound emerges from the instrument. Only then John realizes that the melody should have ended some time ago but the man kept playing, weaving new sounds with the theme John knows so well.

Finally, the stranger slowly lowers the violin and steps out of the shadow. He seems familiar, like the music he’s just played, and yet John knows he has never seen his face before. The man’s skin is so pale that nearly translucent, with an eerily greyish tone that progresses into the smoky black of his curls. His eyes gleam in the dim light of the street lamps and lock with John’s own. His full lips form an uncertain smile that makes his cheekbones stand out.

“Hello, John,” he says and John’s soul hums in acknowledgement.

 

***

 

When John was a little boy, he used to chase his own shadow. He would start running in the middle of a conversation or jump towards the dark shape on the ground when he thought it was distracted. He could never catch it.

“Muuum!” he complained after another failed attempt. They were in the park one lazy Sunday afternoon, and Harry kept laughing at his efforts between feeding junk food to the ducks despite the banning-order. “Why is he always faster than me?”

“Who, darling?” his mother asked.

“Him!” John explained, gesturing to the ground, where his shadow was mirroring him.

John’s mother smiled.

“Well,” she started, trying to choose the right words. “Some stories tell that shadows are people’s souls and you can harm a person by hurting that person’s shadow. He’s probably just trying to protect you.”

John’s little face lit up.

“Really?” he asked.

But of course that had to be the moment Harry chose to listen to their mother and she began chasing after John, trying to step on his shadow, kick it, jump on it or hurt it in any possible way. He managed to hide under a tree and looked down on his shadow.

“I will protect you too,” he promised and only came back when his mother called after him, his sister aggressively feeding the ducks again.

 

***

 

“I don’t understand,” John finally says when they’re both sitting on his bed with steaming mugs of tea. “Who are you? How do you know my name?” he asks and maybe he should have thought about asking before he invited the stranger into his flat. John just let the man wordlessly follow him upstairs and there was such familiarity in that motion that he got carried away and made tea after a desperate search for a second mug. Now they’re sitting on John’s bed in his terrible little bedsit and it should be awkward or creepy but feels comforting instead.

“We’ve never met,” John says, “but I feel as if I knew you.”

The man is silent for a while, looking blankly at his violin that rests beside them on the bed.

“You went back to war,” he finally murmurs; the cadence of his voice reminds John of the melody he played. The man looks at him and John doesn’t know if he’s real. “You went back to war and you _left me behind_.”

“Oh God,” John’s eyes widen because he suddenly understands. He _knows_ who this is even if it can’t be. He looks down at where his shadow once was, closes his eyes and breathes.

 

***

 

The first time he heard the melody, he missed the great part of it, only really focusing on the last few notes. He’d stormed out of his sister’s flat, unable to bear her drunken teasing any longer. He tried to be patient with her. After all, their mother had just died and he wasn’t exactly coping well either. The teasing was getting progressively vulgar and explicit though, so John left. He was going to spend the rest of his leave in a cheap hotel.

He opened the window to air the room and that’s when he heard the music. It enveloped him completely and made him forget all about Harry, and even his mother, with gentle, soothing tones. When it ended, he didn’t quite know where he was and he blinked at the building in front of him. There was a long shadow that almost reached the first floor window and it took John a while to realize it was his own.

He smiled fondly as his shadow retreated. It got very slim somehow, John noticed, probably due to the army diet.

John ached for the music to be back and somehow he knew that his shadow wanted it too.

They heard it again the next night and the one after that, which was when John set his fascinated shadow free and watched as it disappeared behind the closed dark window, his whispered goodbye no more than a discordant note in the hypnotizing melody.

 

***

 

“So what’s your name then?” John asks after he’s made them more tea. The room is already filling with grey dawn light but they haven’t even talked that much. It seemed unimportant somehow, and the silence was enough.

“Sherlock,” the man says. “Sherlock Holmes.”

“Oh, you have surnames too?”

The man — Sherlock — just looks at him pointedly.

“Sorry,” John says. “Stupid question.”

“No, it’s fine.” Sherlock sighs. “I just need to remember that you’re as ignorant about my world as the rest of humanity.”

John takes a deep breath, half convinced it was some kind of a twisted compliment.

“So you have surnames,” he says.

“Yes,” Sherlock answers and doesn’t seem eager to elaborate. John wants to know more about the world of shadows but maybe it’s time for different stories.

“Tell me where you’ve been after we last saw each other,” he says and it’s worth it to see how Sherlock’s entire body fills with energy when he talks about the building on the other side of the street and the old musician that lived there who taught him how to play the violin. John listens with rising interest how Sherlock crept in the shadows and learned to observe, and how he accidentally blackmailed some people by looking for confirmation of what he’d figured out. How he gained friends in high places and how he became the world’s only consulting detective.

“That’s amazing,” John says and smiles a bit sadly. He can’t resent Sherlock his freedom, even if it meant he himself felt desperately lonely.

Sherlock smiles too but then he looks away.

“I looked for you,” he says quietly. “I returned to that hotel room we stayed in and I wanted to show you what I’d learned but you were already gone, so I looked for you.”

John closes his eyes and then breathes in and out shakily. He recognizes his own pain after losing a friend in Sherlock’s voice.

“You knew I’d have to go back there, Sherlock,” he says. “I was on my leave but it couldn’t last forever. I had to—“ He sighs and rubs at his temples. “But I waited, you know. I thought... maybe if I stayed in that little hotel room long enough to hear the music again, you’ll come back. But there was no more music...”

John’s voice trails away and he looks down at his hands. It all happened three years ago but he still remembered every agonizing detail of those couple of days, every second he dared to hope that he’d hear the familiar melody. But there was only an old loud clock on the wall to break the silence of the room.

“I’m here now,” Sherlock says and hesitates before putting a hand on his arm. It’s tangible. It’s real.

“You weren’t in Afghanistan,” John points out and immediately regrets it. He didn’t mean to sound so bitter. Wasn’t he the one who set his shadow free? “You’re here now,” he says and smiles tiredly but genuinely and Sherlock mirrors his smile as if it was his second nature. And maybe it is.

 

***

 

Despite learning how the shadows worked, John never forgot his mother’s words. The dark, silent figure was often his only companion and confidant when John’s parents argued and his sister took the anger he didn’t quite understand on him.

She caught him once, sitting on the low stony fence that circled their flat. The sun warmed his back and made his shadow more visible, more real. John talked to him, waiting for his parents to stop shouting and for his father to storm out, so he could go back inside and do his homework.

Finally, he heard the door slamming and the engine starting.

“He’ll come back,” John told the shadow. “He always comes back.”

The shadow might have said something back if John’s sister hadn’t stepped on it.

“Hiya, little loser,” she said and punched him in the arm. “Don’t talk to yourself or I’ll think you’ve gone nuts.”

“I wasn’t,” John said, trying to stop her from ruffling his hair. He wasn’t a little child anymore!

Harry looked down and sighed dramatically. Then she jumped on his shadow making John wince.

“You’re so stupid!” she said. “Do you believe in Father Christmas too? It’s all bullshit, you know.”

John pursed his lips and stood up.

“I’m going to do my homework,” he said and stepped out of his sister’s reach. “And if I were you, I’d at least brush my teeth. You stink of cigarettes.”

He turned around and disappeared in the flat.

 

***

 

“Why were you even playing on this street?” John asks and fights his traitorous eyelids that try to tell him it’s time to sleep. But he doesn’t want to sleep. He’s afraid he might wake up and realize it was all just a dream. “Did you know I live here?”

“No,” Sherlock says and looks at his violin. “I sometimes go out to play in different parts of the city. It... It’s a good way to observe people.”

John smiles sleepily.

“Right,” he says. “And where do _you_ live?”

Sherlock clears his throat and fidgets a bit.

“I...” He coughs. “I got evicted actually.”

“You—“ John starts.

“A minor disagreement with the landlord. I spilled acid on the floor one time too many and it’s apparently something the deposit can no longer cover.”

“Acid?”

“Experiment.”

“Okay.” John chuckles. “So you’re homeless?”

“I’m going to see a flat tomorrow,” Sherlock says and pauses for a while. “I could use a flatmate,” he adds quietly.

John smiles at him.

“Would you play something for me?” he asks.

Sherlock wordlessly takes the violin and plays a soft melody that lulls the unwilling John to sleep.

 

***

 

It was difficult to hide his lack of shadow under the unforgiving Afghan sun. Even if people didn’t notice straight away, his presence unnerved him as they could instinctively feel that there was something not quite alright with him.

John didn’t blame them. He himself felt strangely incomplete, even if the only missing part of him was his vague reflection. He felt really lonely for the first time in his life. It was worse than when Harry took a girl home and his father didn’t come back after a fight. It was worse than when Harry landed in hospital with alcohol poisoning for the first time. And it was even somehow worse than when he found out his mother had died.

This time, there was no one he could tell about it.

But, in the end, there were more important things to worry about than some missing shadows, so people mainly moved on. Not all of them though.

John remembers one soldier that kept eyeing him suspiciously almost from the very first day he got back from his leave. He remembers hearing him say that John had sold his soul to the devil.

He also remembers Bill Murray giving the kid a serious look. He remembers what he said then, over a distant sound of gunshots:

“Haven’t we all?”

 

***

 

John wakes up to the sound of someone talking animatedly in a hushed baritone. He keeps very still and tries to assess his surroundings and identify the potential danger. Then it all comes back to him and he opens his eyes to see Sherlock on the phone. John feels practically euphoric to find him still here.

Sherlock notices he’s awake and hangs up without as much as saying goodbye. He grins at John and pulls at the duvet.

“What—“ John protests and pulls back. He doesn’t particularly want to go back to sleep but he’s not letting other people decide that for him.

“I need to go see the flat,” Sherlock says.

“So?” John manages to retrieve the duvet.

“So you’ll go with me.” He hesitates and sits on the bed. “Right?”

“But we’ve only just met,” John protests and it’s so blatantly untrue that he doesn’t understand why he’s said it.

“John,” Sherlock says, gently, and looks him in the eye. “We’ve known each other our entire lives. You’re the only friend I’ve got,” he admits quietly.

John blinks at him and thinks about all those times that his shadow was there for him and he takes his hand.

“Okay,” he says, looking into Sherlock’s surprised eyes. “Okay.”

And he smiles.

They go to see the flat after that and before the afternoon has a chance to begin, they’re already chasing an arsonist down the cold but sunny streets of London. John follows Sherlock’s tall figure like a shadow neither of them has and he doesn’t mind one bit.

**Author's Note:**

> I thought of two possible ways I could take this story but since I already wrote The Frog Prince retelling for another prompt from Sherlock's POV, I decided to go with John this time. I'd still like to read a fic where Sherlock's first shadow is Moriarty and then he grows another one - John.


End file.
